Wednesday, December 04, 2002

Be The Leaf Monster Day!

Get out to the sidewalk about five minutes early to wait for the guys in your carpool to pull up. Five minutes will be just long enough for you to completely bury yourself in that pile of leaves you had your kid rake up all weekend after you pretended you didn't approve of his behavior when you walked into his bedroom and found him lying naked on the bed with a joint in his mouth and an erection in his hand (seventeen is fucking disgusting). A good measure of whether anyone can see you is daylight. There should be none there under your beautiful blanket of dead leaves. Just crouch still and don't breathe. To pass the time while you wait for the car to pull up, why not worry that a dog is going to pee on you.

When you hear the car pull up, wait just a moment, just long enough for your coworkers to wonder, "Hey, what's taking Debbie so long?" Just when they're debating whether to break the cardinal carpool rule and tap the horn, that's when you spring up from the pile of leaves with your hands hooked over like long-clawed paws high above your head and as the leaves shower to the ground around you summon from the deep of your bowels an unholy:

"RRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWHHHHHHRRR!!!"

Dave, who's always sitting in the backseat craning his neck to covet your low-crime suburban neighborhood will be the first to spot you and he'll alert everyone else to you by saying, "OH JESUS!!! IT'S THE FUCKING LEAF MONSTER!!! DRIVE BOB! DRIVE! DRIVE! DRIVE!"

Lumber towards the car, arms still above your head, with big, reverborating steps through the dewy grass. Bob will try to get the car in gear but true to form (just like he bungled the Winthrop Hammerlens account), the car will jolt in reverse right toward you. That's when you should toss your briefcase aside and hop atop the trunk of the car. Ashok, who to this point has kept his cool, will now send through his gaping mouth a slow whisper that assesses the situation to a tee.

Ashok: Ohhhhh dear God almighty...

Dave will be crying too hard to tell the sound of your fist thrusting through the rear windshield from the screaming through his own bald little head. He won't have time to compare before you send your claws deep into his throat and clench your paw around his voicebox to keep him from waking the neighbors. Send Dave's head to the door frame with enough force to pin his skull to the coathook. Ashok will run from the car, funnily enough in between the houses to the other side of your block where you happen to know three other leaf monsters are waiting impatiently for their breakfast.

Bob should have gotten the car started by now, so make sure you've got your balance when you climb up on the roof to punch a hole through it. You might stub a claw on the top of Bob's head if you punch too hard, so pull back. You just want to slam a hole big enough to get your elbow through so you can have the wiggle room necessary to rip Bob's scalp from his skull. He shouldn't have gotten the car up above thirty miles an hour before he goes into shock, so the car should just ease to a stop about a block and a half down if it doesn't run up onto somebody's lawn first. When it stops, pull Bob up through the hole in the roof and lay him across your lap. Then tear him in two at the waist, tossing the legs and crotch to the street below, and sink your head into his intestines to feed.

Once you're stuffed, walk back to your house and tell your son he's gonna have to drive you to work in his car and you'll write him a note to excuse his tardiness to high school.

Happy Be The Leaf Monster Day!